Saturday, February 27, 2016

Last month, in response to this article by Mons. Charles Pope at the National Catholic Register, warning that many EF congregations may not be growing, or even shrinking, I posed to our readers the question “How is Your TLM Doing?” The responses, which you can read in the combox attached to that article, unsurprisingly, ranged all over the place, some of them very much cause for optimism, others not so much, and there was also a great deal of commentary on Mons. Pope’s article.

At the suggestion of one of our regular commenters, I would like to pose a second question in a similar vein, and invite all of our readers to sound off in the combox.

Since it was not even remotely the will of the Second Vatican Council that the use of Latin disappear from the majority of our churches, what is your church or apostolate doing to promote greater interest in, understanding of, and love for the Ordinary Form of the Mass in Latin, and is it working? And conversely, if attendance at your Latin OF is shrinking, why do you think this is happening, and what do you think could be done to change it?

Please read this before commenting: I realize that we need to define some terms here, before this question can be answered, since it is almost unheard of for any Mass in the post-Conciliar Rite to be said entirely in Latin. For the purposes of this survey, a Mass counts as “a Latin OF” if the Ordinary is sung or said in Latin, and the Canon is said in Latin.

As I wrote vis-à-vis the TLM survey question, I believe I can trust our readers to contribute to such a discussion in a constructive manner, without bashing people or airing grievances. If you want to report that your Latin OF is not doing well for whatever reason, DO NOT mention anything specific to identify it, such as the names of people (clergy or lay), dioceses, churches, congregations, choir directors etc. Comments which stray out of these boundaries will be deleted.